Cadillac of Mulches is a Habitat Guzzler
Louisiana’s huge cypresses have been destroyed in the name of better gardens. But switching to pine straw won’t solve forest loss.
“Cutting an 80-to-100-year-old cypress tree for mulch is like taking your dining room furniture and burning it for firewood.” So says John Day, Louisiana
The Figure in The Carpet
Haughty artists and garish floral carpets set the fantasy-prone off on a harrowing trip to Obsession.
“The thing’s as concrete there as a bird in a cage, a bait on a hook, a piece of cheese in a mouse-trap.”
So insists novelist Hugh Vereker about
Take Turns: A Survival Strategy
Alpine plants in a region of Tibet have survived and diversified over millennia through a kind of floral courtesy.
You learned it in nursery school or, among siblings, even earlier. Nobody has to die over the Etch-a-Sketch because everybody will get to scribble. Just wait
Can Flag Iris Get A Golfer to Heaven?
How do golfers sleep knowing their perfect playgrounds are poisoning the soil and water? Their association is paying plant scientists for help.
There are many people, or at least one, who believe that golf and all involved in the sport need redemption.
When our life
Partisan Seed, Political Microclimates
Do flower choices announce how you voted?
We’re supposed have a secret ballot in the U.S., but the flowers and vegetables in our yards may make a sham of it.
According to George Ball, the president of the giant seed company W. Atlee Burpee, the
Hogweed – Flower of the Cold War
It’s lacerating, it’s impotency-producing, it’s invasive… It’s Giant Hogweed!!
Who’d have guessed that a relative of carrot and Queen Anne’s lace could sterilize goats and scar the faces of children?
This season’s floral horror tale may be found in E.O. Torriero’s fine article about Heracleum
Erosion v. Eruption Lupine in Iceland
Is Lupinus nootkatensis a panacea or peril?
Grain by grain, Iceland is blowing away. Soil erosion is a huge problem on this treeless, windy island, and the harsh climate discourages most plants from taking hold.
In 1945, someone (we’ve yet to discover who) had the
Heartthrob of the Fall Line
Along an ancient border of the American Southeast, it’s showtime for the rocky shoals spider lily.
Throughout the land of gracious drawl—the Southeastern United States—people refer to “ The Fall Line, ” where the Appalachian Piedmont meets the coastal Atlantic plain. “Its name arises from
Gregarious Flowering
Officials in NE India, fearing that the oncoming bamboo bloom will bring famine, struggle to get a grip on this runaway resource.
Mizoram, a teardrop hanging between Bangladesh and Myanmar, is wet, hilly land covered with forests. Mizo lore and ag scientists agree there’s a
